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keeping shrimp in the dark

Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2012 8:20 am
by link81
i'm getting about ready to move my 2g shrimp tank to my office.
I have a concern though, when no ones here its fairly dark. pretty much every weekend and holidays/vacations ect.
Think its going to bother the shrimps any?

Re: keeping shrimp in the dark

Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2012 7:19 am
by dagray
you shouldn't have any problem with a dark shrimp tank for a couple days. Shrimp are going to eat in the dark and there will be some ambient light during the day.

Dark will also help you control algae as two of the three things needed for plants to grow (and algae is a plant) are light, and nutrients (bio waste from food breaking down and animal waste); I don't remember the third but it isn't CO2. By removing or shortening the light cycle you have less chance of algae building in your tank. This can be a bad thing if you have algae eating shrimp, but you can feed them algae wafers and you will be fine.

Dave

Re: keeping shrimp in the dark

Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2012 12:16 pm
by link81
its pretty darn dark in the office when there is no one there, i don't have any external walls. but for some stupid reason i didn't even think of putting the light on a timer, i suppose i will try it without and if i think there are any issues i'll just pick up a timer.

Re: keeping shrimp in the dark

Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2012 9:58 pm
by mikhelee
just a thought seeing on how new and relatively rare this hobby is. whenever i tell someone i have a shrimp tank they kinda look at me funny and ask me when i'm going to eat them. no one has really seen anything like them before. At least not out here.